


All That I'll Ever Need

by lovethatwewerein



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mentioned Kurt Hummel, Minor Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24666211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethatwewerein/pseuds/lovethatwewerein
Summary: They’re intimately close now, arms pressed together as though trying to hide something, and they’re both turning red. He knows Blaine is modest, that he doesn’t accept compliments well even when they’re necessary to his being, but he’d thought Rachel was always ready to accept praise. Maybe he’d been wrong.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Rachel Berry/Sebastian Smythe, Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe, Rachel Berry/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	All That I'll Ever Need

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Tenerife Sea' by Ed Sheeran

The first time Sebastian meets Rachel Berry is backstage at McKinley High. She’s playing Maria, capturing the attention of the audience with such ferocity that he can already see that she’s fierce competition, and he can appreciate the commitment she puts into her work. It makes her formidable, possibly the only real problem he’ll face in his attempt to get the Warblers to the top. 

When he goes backstage she’s talking to the girl playing Anita, running a hand through her hair and worrying her bottom lip. It’s disconcerting, seeing someone so clearly confident barely twenty minutes ago be nervous. He’s not entirely sure if it’s the performance that has her dragging her teeth over her lip or, by the way her eyes keep flashing towards the other end of the room, to a boy taller than even him, something completely different but he wants to involve himself regardless. 

So that’s what he does. 

It’s easy to offer praise that she only kind of deserves. She’s got the talent, the drive to go wherever she wants when she graduates at the end of the year, but something about the way she stands, picking at her costume for invisible dirt, tells him that she might not make it that far. That she might leave her dreams behind just to remain safe in Ohio, for the security that living with parents seems to offer so many students. 

He’s wearing his uniform, the red against the navy standing out amongst the various colours everyone else is wearing. Despite never wanting to be there in the first place, he does get some semblance of comfort from the blazer. It rests on his shoulders like a security blanket (not that he needs one), makes him part of a community. It also proves that he doesn’t belong where he’s standing. 

“Blaine,” she calls to a boy standing nearby, caught up in conversation with the kid who played Officer Krupke. Something doesn’t sit right when he walks towards them, his hand slipping from the other’s even while his attention is stuck on Rachel. “This is Sebastian. He’s from Dalton.” 

So this is Blaine. Sebastian knows of him, of his leaving Dalton for a boyfriend they weren’t entirely sure he should love, of how betrayed the rest of the Warblers felt. He’s not exactly Sebastian’s type - he’s too short, smiles too widely when he shakes his hand - but he’s got pretty eyes and a killer ass, so he’s willing to be polite. 

“Blaine Anderson,” he says, shaking the shorter’s hand, his grip firm enough to be deceiving. He doesn’t imagine the boyfriend has that good of a handshake. “Sebastian Smythe.” 

“Are you a freshman?” Blaine asks, because he’s never met him before and he probably knew everyone from Dalton. Sebastian laughs, “Do I look like a freshman?” 

The blush is worth it, coating his cheeks and bringing him closer to Rachel. She’s watching them with veiled interest, coffee eyes studying his face, as though looking to read his intentions towards _her_ Tony. There’s no chance of her finding out anything. He’s played this game too many times to lose. 

“You were both incredible,” he can already feel the relief escaping them, seeping out of their pores, because they need approval to thrive. They need to be liked the same way he needs to breathe the air, and he’s willing to use that to an unfair advantage. “I can see why you were cast. No one else could’ve done the roles justice.” 

They’re intimately close now, arms pressed together as though trying to hide something, and they’re both turning red. He knows Blaine is modest, that he doesn’t accept compliments well even when they’re necessary to his being, but he’d thought Rachel was always ready to accept praise. Maybe he’d been wrong. 

“Thank you,” Blaine says for the both of them. Officer Krupke is glaring at him now, his pale face pinching at the edges, and Sebastian thinks that maybe he should try biding his time. “It’s really great of you to say, but everyone else was just as good.”

Rachel interrupts. “Kurt was a really great Officer Krupke. It’s a shame you couldn’t both be Tony.” He looks back at Officer Krupke, _Kurt_ , and doesn’t see it. Everything about him is all wrong for the role of Tony, from this hair down to the way he’s standing, but Sebastian is still a guest, and he wants to see both Rachel and Blaine again. 

“Well, there are no small parts.” He leaves the rest unsaid on purpose, the rest of his meaning hovering around them. It’s not a direct insult, but it says enough that Rachel turns her attention away and Blaine’s lips curve downwards. 

He can’t afford to lose them this early on, have them detest him for a minor insult, so he says his goodbyes. They’re polite, wishing him a safe trip home, and he tries to remember to add them on Facebook. 

He doesn’t. 

*

He bumps into Blaine a week later at a nearby coffee shop. He’s supposed to be meeting Nick, but the other Warbler is late and he’s got time to kill. 

“I was sitting over there, checking out this guy,” he begins, pulling out the other chair at Blaine’s table and ignoring the raised eyebrow he gets in return. “And all of a sudden, I’m like, wait a second, I know that hair.” 

Blaine has textbooks spread across the table, diagrams of animal cells and the inside of a leaf, but he puts his pen down to contribute to the conversation. It’s something, at least. 

“How are the Warblers?” 

He’s curious. There’s a hopefulness in his voice that Sebastian can’t begin to understand. He knows Blaine hasn’t spoken to them since he left, and none of them have had it in them to reach out. “They’re doing okay. The council is gone, so I’m going in for captain.” 

“The council is gone?” 

“After Wes and David left, they kind of fell apart I think,” he shrugs. He hadn’t listened much when Trent tried to explain it, the other boy losing track of his actual story to tell him something that hadn’t much mattered in the long run. “No one really wanted to step in, so someone has to step up.” 

Blaine’s playing with the lid of his cup, distracting him from the conversation just for a second. He’s never been easily taken with anyone, not the same way he has with Blaine or Rachel, and he has to fight his instincts each time he speaks with them. They’re sensitive, which he needs to at least respect, meaning he has to tread more carefully than he has in a long time. 

“I’m also hoping to abolish the two-step.” 

“I brought in the two-step.” 

“And you didn’t take it with you when you left?” It’s spiteful, they both know it. He’s paid attention to enough of the Warblers to know how bitter they are and he can’t help himself. Blaine can’t look him in the eyes. “I didn’t plan to leave, you know?” 

He didn’t know. He only knew what the boys at Dalton had told him, and some of it was accusatory where the rest was more conspiracy. “Why did you then?” 

“Kurt kept bugging me about it and, I don’t know, I just wanted to get him to stop.” He’s tearing an empty sugar packet into small pieces, his voice quieter than it had been a moment ago. Sebastian waits. “I wanted to go anyway but I just... I wasn’t sure I was ready.” 

“You went because Kurt wanted you to make him happy?” 

Blaine blinks, his hazel eyes pleading for him to listen to words he’d already decided to ignore. He was right, he was always right, but Blaine had probably spent so much time lying about the truth that he’d come to believe it. 

“I went because I didn’t want to be apart from the person I love.” 

“How’s that working out for you?” 

There’s a tense silence that falls over them after that, the low chatter of everyone else in the shop fading into the background. It’s possible he pushed too far, he’s been guilty of it in the past, but the shorter boy is stuck in deep thought and he’s not entirely sure that he has. Or that Blaine’s ever been asked such a question before. 

“You don’t have to answer.” He eventually says, offering an olive branch. Blaine’s clearly lost himself to the question and, impatient as he is, he can wait for him to come to his senses. It’s not often that he lets something slide but he’ll make an exception on occasion. 

Blaine nods at that, and asks him what changes he plans to make to the Warblers. There’s improvements that need to be made, as good as they have been in the past, and Blaine still gets offended at his hatred for the two-step. It’s kind of normal and he doesn’t know how to feel about that when he leaves. 

*

Rachel Berry finds him at Dalton the day after his conversation with Blaine. Her hair is flying, cheeks ablaze, and she’s ranting about something that he pays no mind. Despite her nose, and the diva-like attitude Blaine hadn’t forgotten to mention yesterday, she’s pretty. She’s passionate and it’s attractive enough that he starts to listen to her words. 

“- And I’m just not sure that they’re going to last.” she finishes, still standing in the doorway of his dorm room. The corridors are mostly empty, just a few boys not doing any extracurriculars milling about, but Rachel can be loud so he hurries her in, grateful that he’d managed to clean up before she arrived. 

“You realise I have no idea who you’re talking about, right?” 

She sits down on his bed, prim and proper in a reindeer sweater and tights. It shouldn’t be an image he enjoys, shouldn’t even be on his radar, but she’s awkwardly perched on the edge and he’s leaning against his desk just to get a better view. 

“Kurt and Blaine, obviously,” she rolls her eyes, and if that doesn’t get him slightly hot under the collar. He’s always had a thing for sensible people with a mean side. They’re like a bad habit. Not that he’d tell her that. “I’ve been worried about them since Blaine got cast as Tony.” 

“Hummel was jealous?” 

“I can kind of see why,” she admitted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “They wouldn’t give him the part because he was too effeminate.”

He desperately tries to hold in a chuckle, fighting even harder when Rachel’s lip twitches. He wasn’t sure she would find the funny side of it. Apparently she did.

“How come you’re here anyway?” he asks, keeping his focus on her face when all he wants is to stare at her legs. They’re a dancer’s legs, he’s been with enough of them to know, and it’s difficult not to touch. “And how did you find my room?” 

“I just asked one of the Warblers. I think they knew who I was.”

“Do you know which one of them it was?” 

She laughs. “No idea.” 

It doesn’t surprise him that she can’t tell who it was. A lot of Dalton boys have the same air about them, pretentious. He’s guilty of it, it’s in the way he presents himself to the world, but sometimes it’s hard to tell everyone here apart. They’re almost all the same. 

“Did you just come here to rant about Blaine and his boyfriend?” 

Rachel blushes. It doesn’t affect him, doesn’t send a thrill up his spine at all. “I actually came to you for some advice. Relationship advice.” 

That interests him. Last he’d heard, she was dating a football player, one of the leaders of their glee club. He’d imagine at least one of them knew something about dating, probably much more than he did anyway. “What do you want to know?” 

“How do you tell someone you don’t want to marry them?” 

Sebastian blinks. Of everything that she could’ve asked, that’s what he least expected. He’s never been in a relationship, never cared enough about anyone else to even consider it. He’s arguably the worst person to talk to about this. 

“It’s just…” she flounders for an explanation, biting her lip the same way she had the night after West Side Story. It’s intoxicating. “I just don’t want any of my friends to know that Finn asked me to marry him, or that I want to say no.” 

“I’m not an expert,” he begins, and he thinks that joining her on the bed might be a good idea. Being under the guise of comforting her to the fullest, he sits down next to her. Close enough that he can smell her floral perfume. “But I think this is something you have to tell him straight.” 

“I can’t do that!” 

“It’s a marriage proposal and you’re 18. He can’t expect you to say yes.” He’s not entirely sure why he’s even entertaining this conversation, but she leans in closer to him and he can’t be bothered to push her away. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Who says you’re not going to meet someone new in a few years?” 

She leans her head on his shoulder, her hair tickling his neck just so. The scent of her shampoo, something tropical that he can’t recognise, replaces the smell of her perfume and he tries to breathe it in without her noticing. 

“I do love him. But it’s just like you said. We’re basically still kids. We can’t get married.” 

“So tell him that.” 

“It’ll hurt his feelings.” 

He rolls his eyes. She can’t see but he imagines that she can sense the shift in his reaction. “The only way to avoid hurting his feelings is to marry him. Is that what you plan to do?” 

She launches up, almost knocking into his chin. Her skirt had inched up her thighs while she’d been sitting down on his comforter, but now it rests near her knees. Sensible. “I really can’t avoid hurting him. It’s either marry him and face the possibility of being unhappy for the rest of my life or, y’know, giving up on Broadway because Finn wouldn’t fit in in New York. I definitely don’t want that.” 

“So break up with him,” he lies down, folding his arms under his head so he can still kind of see her walking around his room. “Sing him some sad song that shows how guilty you feel but also tells him you can’t be with him anymore. It’s what you’d do anyway, isn’t it?” 

“That was actually my original plan.” she muttered, hopping up onto his desk with a frown. It would be so easy for him to do what he normally does, whisper a few select words and have her begging for his touch. He doesn’t though, just offers to take her out to dinner so they can brainstorm song ideas. 

*

“Kurt and I broke up,” is the first thing Blaine says when they meet for coffee a month after Rachel had shown up at his dorm room. They’d started to speak more often, but he hadn’t thought they’d reached this point in their friendship - if that’s even what it was.

“Okay…” 

“A small bit of pity would be nice.” Blaine answers, rolling his eyes even when he lets slip a small grin. His hair seems to have less gel than any other time they’ve talked in the past, some flyaway curls escaping behind his ears and at the nape of his neck. It’s the most free he’s ever seen him, lacking the usual tension he seemed to carry when he and Kurt were an item. 

“My condolences?” 

“Thanks.” 

He waits a few minutes for an answer to a question he hadn’t yet asked. Blaine keeps looking at him, meeting his eyes over the rim of his cup as though knowing that he was expecting him to say something just by filling in the blanks. In the end, his impatience wins against his stubbornness. 

“So what happened between you and Hummel?” His tone is light, almost as if they’re discussing the weather. Blaine grins at him. It’s endearing, not that he’d ever admit that to Blaine. 

“After Finn and Rachel broke up, we started fighting a lot. Every little thing was just a battle,” Blaine shrugs idly, as if he hasn’t just been dumped (or did he dump Kurt? He’s not too sure) by someone he changed his whole life to be with. “I was on Rachel’s side and he didn’t want his step-brother to keep hurting. He was still angry over West Side Story. Mercedes, Santana and Brittany left the New Directions, which tore everyone apart.” 

“Show choir really is hardcore these days.” 

“I just couldn’t put up with the constant digs. So we broke up.” 

Sebastian sipped his coffee, taking his time to graze his eyes over Blaine’s form. His pants, cardigan and bowtie were all shades of grey. Simple. Understated. He and Rachel had that in common. And a terrible taste in men. 

“Good for you. How’s Rachel doing, by the way?” 

He watched as Blaine came to life, describing how Rachel had struggled to get support in glee club over the last few weeks, fighting so much harder for solos than she ever had before. He was so impassioned talking about her, so animated, that he wondered if they even realised what he had the second he saw them together. 

“How’d you fancy going out tonight?” he interrupts when Blaine pauses to breathe. It’s an idea he’s had for a while - originally as a way to trick them into sharing information with him, now just because he wanted to see Blaine let loose. Rachel too. 

Blaine hesitates, the refusal clearly on the tip of his tongue. He glances up though, sees Kurt walk past the window with some short blond, and, “What did you have in mind?” 

*

He thinks about bringing them to the only gay bar in Lima. Destroying every thought they’ve ever had about common decency in public. He takes pity on them though, both of them acting like excitable puppies despite how hot they both are when he picks them up. Blaine got rid of the bowtie, wore chinos tighter than Sebastian could ever imagine to be comfortable, and left his hair mainly loose. 

Rachel had gone all out, the short skirt and tight top obviously unfamiliar on her. It was obscenely sexy though, and he made sure to tell her as much when she climbed into his car. She’d also brought a thin cardigan with her but, in case that didn’t work, he had a couple spare hoodies in the back. Not because he wanted to see them in his clothes. He always kept spares lying around.

“We’ve got two choices: I know a really cool karaoke bar that we could go to or there’s a club in the town over that lets me in normally. Your pick.” 

He expects their answer, sees it coming in the way both their eyes light up at the mention of karaoke. He knew they were incredible together, knew that they would likely be the most talented people there, but it would be a laugh. And they’d see what they were up against. He couldn’t be nice all the time.

Blaine’s practically bouncing in his seat by the time they reach the bar, his bottom lip red from biting it with anticipation. Rachel’s a lot more collected, her leg shaking just so. He reaches out to still it, taking a second to appreciate the softness of her thigh, and just smirks when she raises an eyebrow. 

“Just don’t sing any show tunes,” he tells them as he holds the door open, an excuse to see them both from behind that they see right through. Blaine does, at least. It’s good enough for him. “I don’t know how it’ll go down with this crowd.” 

There’s some middle-aged ladies making their way to the small stage in the corner, each of them smiling just slightly too wide to be considered at all sober, and a younger couple he remembers from the last time he was here. Somewhere he sees Marley - she was a sweet girl, and normally filled the silence that fell over the bar when no one else wanted to sing. They’d sang together once, late into the night when he was too far gone to even care that she was that little bit better than him, but she still waved at him whenever he swung by.

“You can go up whenever.” 

Rachel jumps at the chance to sing for an audience, eager to prove her worth to everyone nearby. She’d kill whatever she chose to sing, he and Blaine both knew it, but her choice kind of shocks them both. 

“I didn’t even know she knew the words to this song,” Blaine whispers to him when she starts to sing. She fills the room, everyone on the nearby tables falling into a silence just to watch her, but her eyes are closed and she doesn’t notice. “She’s really good.” 

“Isn’t she always?” he asks, winking because he can barely resist the way Blaine blushed when he flirts with him. 

“That’s true.” 

They join the rest of the bar in silence, letting themselves be swept up in the sound of her voice. It’s just as powerful as the night of West Side Story, possibly more so, and he feels a surge of pride (he thinks it’s pride anyway) at knowing Rachel Berry. 

Blaine lets Marley sing a few songs, staring at him when he raises his glass to the brunette as she invites Rachel up to sing with her. He never really liked Billy Joel, the songs just never sitting with him unlike so many other artists, but they sound amazing and he can’t deny that they’d easily blow the competition out of the water if they had the chance. 

“I want you to sing with me.” 

He almost chokes on his drink, slapping his chest as he turns to Blaine. The other boy is staring at the stage, some elderly man singing along to a song from the 50s that he doesn’t recognise, but there’s a faint blush on his cheeks that manage to give him away. 

“You’ve never heard me sing.” 

“I just have a feeling we’d kill it.” 

They do kill it. They’re just as good as Marley and Rachel in a different way, and he should’ve expected it. He didn’t… But that’s become a bad habit where Blaine Anderson is concerned. 

*  
He doesn’t blackmail them like he planned to at the start. Doesn’t think he could see the hatred in either of their eyes. 

*

It comes to the point where they meet for coffee every other day. Sometimes, he and Blaine will go over the other boy’s french and he’ll get him so flustered that he has to excuse himself. Other times, he’ll quiz Rachel on dates for history and try not to chuckle when she answers so confidently with a wrong answer. 

There’s the odd occasion, so rarely that even he wonders why they bother, that they’ll meet at someone’s house. His is the furthest out, and he doesn’t even really live there anyway. Rachel’s is closest, her dads greeting both him and Blaine with nothing but politeness - it still makes him uncomfortable. 

They go to Blaine’s for the first time on a Saturday, his parents away for some sort of celebratory weekend. There’s a lot of personal touches to the Anderson household, far more than his own and more obvious than those at Rachel’s. He expects them to stay downstairs all day, maybe all sit together on the sofa to watch a film. He doesn’t expect Blaine to lead them both upstairs to his bedroom, telling them to get comfortable on his bed while he finds a DVD. 

He sits with his back against the headboard, Rachel quickly resting her head on his shoulder. She’s wearing knee-high socks this time, her legs bent at the knee to curl under her just slightly. It stretches her skirt across her thighs and, after testing the waters, he lets his hand rest just below the hem. 

Blaine is at the bottom of the bed, on the floor, his curls popping up just over the top of the mattress. There was enough room for him to sit with them, to cuddle into them both and get comfy, but he shakes his head and asks him to pass a pillow down to him so the floor doesn’t make his ass hurt too much. 

During the second movie, when Blaine has finally joined them on the bed (even if just to lie down on his front) he offers to order pizza. 

“We can’t get anything with meat obviously,” he says when they try to choose what topping they want. “Rachel’s a vegetarian.” 

Both of them fall silent at that. It’s awkward, the way they’re staring at him like he’s an alien species, and he can’t think of why they’ve stopped talking. It takes moments, far more than he would’ve enjoyed at any point in time, before Rachel speaks, “You remembered that I’m vegetarian?” 

“It’s pretty easy to remember, guys.”

“Finn forgot.” 

And then it makes sense. Something that small, something like a dietary preference, had played a part in breaking her relationship. The man who asked her to marry him couldn’t remember something as simple as the fact that she didn’t eat meat, and he was nothing but a friend. 

She leaned up to kiss his cheek, whispering a quick thank you, and then declaring loudly that they could just get two pizzas. They were, after all, spending the night, which gave them plenty of time to eat it all. 

He would never admit to the warmth in his chest at that kiss.

Never.

*

He and Blaine first kiss at a halloween party one of the warblers threw. They’re both just past the point of tipsy, and lacking the boundaries that have kept them strictly platonic for a month. 

Neither of them care though, stumbling into a spare bedroom to the tune of wolf-whistles and the Monster Mash. 

They don’t have sex. They don’t even get further than first base. But it’s progress and he only kind of wishes Rachel was there as well.

*

The day of her audition for NYADA he drives to McKinley. His grades were near perfect and he could afford to borrow someone else’s notes for a day. Blaine is waiting for him with a coffee when he gets there, Kurt lingering by the back exit of the auditorium like a bad smell. 

They ignore him, smiling politely at Carmen Tibidoux when she enters the room. She doesn’t comment on his blazer, doesn’t even lift an eyebrow at his presence at another school. It’s nice not to be defined by the red piping, even if it’s just someone who has much more important things to think about. 

Rachel chokes. 

Twice. 

He feels sorry for her, even though she was originally the competition. They’d become friends, possibly something verging on more. (He doesn’t think about Blaine’s hand tangled with his where their chairs meet). All she is is broken, embarrassed, and he doesn’t even think before pulling her close to his body and letting her sob into his chest. 

*

She only sort of copes after that. The memory of that failure, the one thing she’s worked her whole life for, comes crashing down on her sometimes. It’s unexpected, comes at sudden when they’re watching a film or out bowling or doing something that brings her joy, and he tries not to get impatient. 

He does, though. It’s part of who he is. Blaine doesn’t really get it, never has, but he’s willing to listen. It’s those days when they hang out just the two of them, lying on Blaine’s bed with the shorter boy’s head on his chest. He can hear his heartbeat, has told him as much, but he listens to him when it speeds up because he’s angry or confused or just plain horny. 

It takes a while for them to go any further than they did on halloween, for Blaine to feel like it’s not a betrayal. He keeps himself in check for as long as he can, attempting for the first time in years to abstain, but there are moments when Blaine is tracing nonsensical patterns over his chest, or breathing lightly on his neck, that he can’t help himself. 

It happens with no warning. They’re just meeting up to do homework, going to Blaine’s because the Lima Bean is overcrowded and he doesn’t particularly like the staff at the other coffee shop nearby. He’s working on his Literature paper, an analysis on this character that he struggles to sympathise with enough to write objectively, when Blaine leans over and kisses him. 

It’s quick, the type of kiss he hasn’t shared with anyone in a long time. Blaine’s biting his lip when he pulls back, hazel eyes not moving from Sebastian’s own, and he takes the matter into his own hands. 

They almost don’t make it up to Blaine’s bedroom, neither of them really wanting to take a break from each other. But they manage it, and he has no qualms about pushing Blaine against the door with his own body. The little whimpers that leave the shorter boy, the soft moans and grunts when he eventually slips his hand into Blaine’s chinos is well worth the wait.

*

Rachel kisses him when they’re waiting for a taxi one evening. He kisses back, just for a second, because she tastes of cherry and he’s kind of wanted to know that since they met. 

They don’t speak on the way to her house, and he’s not sure he could fill the silence if he tried. He thought she knew about him and Blaine, whatever they were. Apparently not, he thinks, when he catches her staring at him out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes aren’t shining with tears, but there’s something that makes them shimmer just a little in the dark. 

“Look, Sebastian,” she starts when they make it to her house. The kitchen light is on, and her dads might be watching them out of the window. It doesn’t matter if they are. He runs a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his neck in an uncharacteristic moment of nervousness. “About what happened…”

“I-” he tries, but the words are blocked on their way up his throat because, as much as he likes Blaine, he likes Rachel just the same. They’re all part of this dynamic that none of them can begin to understand. “I think you, Blaine and I all need to talk this through.” 

She nods, as if either of them know what they’re talking about. And then he’s getting back into the taxi, planting a brief kiss on her cheek after just a second’s hesitation because it’s what he normally did. 

Rachel waits until he’s gone, staring after the car like it’ll answer every question she hasn’t asked. He sends a message to Blaine when he’s sure she’s out of sight, guilty that they’ve somehow all ended up in this position. 

_Lima Bean tomorrow? We all need to talk._

*

It’s quiet in their small section of the shop, each of them cradling their cups and wondering where to start. He wants to break the silence that hovers over them, wants to fix whatever it is they’ve become before all they are is this, but he doesn’t know how to and that’s why he doesn’t. 

It ends up being Blaine, his deep breath loud in the awkwardness (even if it’s only him who hears it). “So we’ve all kissed each other?” 

He nods, watching the tips of Rachel’s ears go red. There was no telling whether it was because she’d kissed him or Blaine. He wasn’t too sure he wanted an answer. 

“And Sebastian and I have gone further.” Blaine’s trying to be quiet so they aren’t overheard but his sentence trails off to almost nothing and Sebastian has to strain to hear the words. Just in case, he adds, “Recently.” 

It doesn’t get any easier than that, each of them having to figure out a way to explain what they felt. He struggled to reason it, how he could like both of them so much but in such different ways. He thinks they understand though, because neither of them will meet the other’s eyes and he’s not about to force it on them. 

He offers to get them all another drink, his own empty and Rachel’s gone cold within the hour they’ve spent trying to appeal logic to the situation they’re in. Waiting in line, he sneaks glances at them; Blaine leaning closer to Rachel so he could hear whatever she was saying. It’s only mildly unsettling, that they seem so much more at home without him there, but he chooses not to dwell on it when he returns to the table with fresh drinks. 

Rachel’s refusing to meet his eyes, her cheeks flushed a shade of pink he doesn’t think he’s ever seen on her. Blaine’s staring at her, occasionally looking his way with obvious nerves written all over his face. He waits, patiently, for them to tell him what was going on, to explain away whatever they had to say because he was jittery and also kind of scared. 

He had enough after twenty minutes. 

“One of you has to tell me what’s going on.” He’s trying to look at them both, see who’ll break first but coming up short. “I know you spoke about something while I was getting refills.” 

Blaine’s hands are shaking, his fingers tearing apart an empty sugar packet. Rachel’s looking anywhere but at him. 

“If what you want is each other, I won’t stand in your way.” his voice is strong, stronger and clearer than it should be considering the ache in his chest when he says the words. They’re painful, the crushing reality that he was a game to them, a distraction until they could have one another, but it’s fine. He’s gotten over worse. 

He’s turning to leave, hoping desperately that one of them will stop him before he gets too far. Maybe they’d made him watch too many romances and it’s seeped into his skin, but his heart stutters when Blaine calls out his name just as he reaches the door, Rachel running after him as fast as she can without seeming rude. 

“We thought of _something_. We’re just not too sure how it’s going to work.” 

He’s staring at Blaine like he has six heads, his brain telling him to not say anything until they explain. It’s almost too hard to do.

“What we mean is,” Rachel attempts, licking her lips. It’s a nervous habit, one he finds endearing and all kinds of sexy. He swallows while she continues to speak. “We were thinking that we date. That we _all _date. _Each other_.”__

__The last part is added just in case he didn’t understand. He does, but the idea of both of them and him, all being part of something that’s theirs - it’s terrifying. And absolutely mad. And he has to fight the urge to kiss them both right there because this is still Ohio and they’d probably get kicked out._ _

__He smiles, a real one that he wasn’t sure he was still capable of until they became a part of his life. They want him, and who is he to say no._ _

__“I think we should go somewhere a bit more private.”_ _

__They make it to the smoking area out back._ _

__*_ _

__Settling in is almost too easy. They’ve moved a decent way from home, each of them trying not to pack too much that they don’t have enough room._ _

__He doesn’t regret agreeing to move in with them, hoping that between them all they could find somewhere they weren’t as likely to get mugged as the first place they tried, but they have to incorporate all of their styles and that's actually rather difficult._ _

__They figure it out in the end, just like they always do, and he stares around their flat with pride. This is theirs, unlike everything else they’ve had together, and anyone who knew them could tell. It was right for them, even if not everyone could understand._ _

__“Do you fancy pizza for dinner?”_ _

__He glances over at Blaine standing in the doorway, menu in hand. He nods, careful to avoid bumping Rachel’s head with his chin. “Make sure it’s vegetarian.”_ _

__He and Rachel both laugh when Blaine rolls his eyes. Maybe they aren’t the most conventional of couples, of families, but they love each other and, frankly, that means a whole lot more than anything else._ _

__Even show choir._ _

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be an endgame seblaine fic but that didn't really work out for me. I may add another part eventually but for now I'm happy with this story as is. Thanks for reading. I'm at seblaine403 on tumblr.


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